Posted
by
samzenpuson Wednesday March 12, 2008 @09:56PM
from the we-all-want-a-laser-cannon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Residents of a southern Israeli town want a real-life laser cannon to protect them against Palestinian rocket attacks. And they're suing the national government, for failing to provide the ray gun defense.
The U.S.-Israeli Tactical High Energy Laser project was widely considered to be the most successful energy weapon ever built. But the toxic chemicals needed to generate THEL's megawatts of power made the thing a logistical nightmare. It was scrapped. Now, the residents of Sderot want it back. And they're taking Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to court to make it happen."

Sorry to burst your bubble, but when you refer to people evicted from that land, it's not who you think. No Arabs were required to leave in 1948. Who do you think Israeli Arabs are? The ones who stayed. The "Palestinians" are one of three groups of people:

People who have lived in Gaza/West Bank since before 1948. The reason they never got their state of Palestine as determined by the UN is because Egypt and Jordan stole their land.

Arabs who lived within the "Green Line" who voluntarily left when they didn't want to live under a Jewish government.

Foreigners like Yassir Arafat who were born in countries like Egypt and then claimed to be Palestinians.

No, in fact the only people to be evicted from the land were the Jewish residents of Gush Katif (the settlements in Gaza that Sharon's government evicted in 2005).

Besides, comparing the situation to Texas and the Mexicans is inaccurate; both Jews and Arabs have been living in the land for centuries.

A. As the GP posted, people were not kicked out in 1948. Virtually all of the peoples chose to leave and became refugees. Some of it was due to wartime activity. A war, which, by the way, was started by those same people who were later complaining (The Jewish side accepted the peaceful UN division plan).

B. Millions of other refugees were created by WWII around that time, none of which remained refugees 30 years later. These Palestinian refugees are still considered refugees 60 years later! They should assimilate into whatever lands they live in, they are not refugees anymore.

C. Even if any wrong was done 60 years ago, the grandchildren of the refugees from 1948 are indeed "bad" to be shooting rockets at the grandchildren of the Jews from 1948, who were born to parents who were born there. Whatever happened 60 years ago is now irrelevant to who the lands belong to.

D. They are not really trying to "conquer back the lands", which would, if successful, require another holocaust, but are just trying to kill as many civilians as they can. They know they cannot conquer the lands or achieve anything but propaganda success with violence, and are indeed focusing on the propaganda side.

Sderot is not Ashkenazi. Your Yiddishe Mama reference might be a bit misplaced there. It might also be part of the reason why Sderot residents believe that "the government just doesn't care". Israelis are developing the sentiment of viewing Ashkenazim almost with the same suspicion that Americans view white wasp males.

Can we all please make an effort to keep the comments on track, and not diverge into a "Israelis/Jews are evil" fest?

The residents of Sderot have every right to expect their government to protect them and if the government is refusing to take any preventative action, while over 7,000 rockets have fallen on the town, then suing the government seems a very reasonable action.

Please note that they're not strapping bombs to themselves and running into cafes or government buildings - they're taking a legal action in a desperate request for help.

To pre-empt the comments that will follow, it's not relevant to point out Israeli action in Gaza and get into a debate over whether it's justified or not - this topic is about residents of Sderot taking completely non-violent, legal action, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region.

If only everyone in the region sought such a solution, instead of violence meets violence.

should probably read "over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from its nation, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region, over...".

If only everyone in the region sought such a solution, instead of violence meets violence.

Agreed. It's a circle of violence that is not restricted to one side, and the only way to break it is for one side to just stop. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.

They have. We also invaded at least one country because of it*. Do you suggest that Israel invade and take more territory to solve this problem?

They're also not suing the Palestinians over this, instead are suing their own government for failing to provide a defense.

It's a circle of violence that is not restricted to one side, and the only way to break it is for one side to just stop. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.

I have to agree, but I'll also point out that going by quite a bit of the propaganda on the Palestinian side says that there won't be any peace until all Israelites are 'pushed into the sea'.

History in the area generally shows that any ceasing of aggression on Israel's part is seen more of a sign of impending victory, time to push forward even more.

Maybe something like this laser system might push them to enough despair to actually give it up.

*I figure Iraq wasn't caused by 9/11, but delayed by it. But I know some disagree.

The Palestinians have never wanted peace with Israel as evidenced by Arafat's rejection of Ehud Barak's offer of land for Palestinian statehood in 2000 and then no Palestinian counteroffer.

There were two main reasons Arafat rejected Barak's offer in 2000 - it did not include the right of return of palestinians to their original land or at least a 1-to-1 swap for equivalent land and it divided the so-called "palestinian state" into 4 discontiguous islands, [palestineremembered.com] surrounded by, and thus controlled by israel. This is basic current events Zuke, why don't you know it?

As for a counter-offer? The counter-offer was on the table and already agreed to by israel over a decade earlier - UN resolutions 242 and 338 which both israel and palestine accepted in 1991 and reaffirmed at Oslo in 1993.

To say that palestinians have "never wanted peace" when they had agreed to a plan a decade earlier is completely facetious. Now, a right-winger will respond that the palestinians didn't agree to oslo in good faith. A left-winger will respond that israel didn't agree to oslo in good faith either. My opinion is that each side let themselves be over-come by their own radical elements - bombers on the palestinian side and militant settlers on the israeli side.

Clearly there is plenty of opportunity for peace. But as long as opinions like yours are prevalent, they become a self-fullfilling prophecy.

The land offer was a very clever con trick. There was no way that it could have been accepted because it was so stupid. The trouble is that the general public do not read it, they just want sound bites. They read that 95% of the land was offered back to the Muslims and that sounds good but the 5% was the settlements and the roads to those settlements. The roads being the main problem as that means that even though you can see your neighbours house or the local shop, it may be across the road and if you step on to that road you are liable to be shot. So you have to travel many miles up to the settlement, go around the settlement and travel back down the other side of the road just to visit your neighbour or shop. The problem of the settlements is not just the land they are on, it is also the roads that the Muslims are not allowed to step on. Give the Muslims the roads?

Arafat did counteroffer, he wanted the settlements to go but that was not on offer, therefore the roads were still no go areas.

So, what you are saying is, if someone takes most of your country and forces you into a tiny over crowded part of it, and then they take most of that too, then they offer you the shitty uninhabitable parts back, while keeping control of your infrastructure, they are being generous. Take a look at the map of Israel and Palestine today, all of that used to be Palestine, now it is almost all Israel, the coat the borders and the airspace are ll controlled by Israel, and this super greedy 100% that you talk about is just 100% of the land taken inside the west bank, how can you honestly say that the Palestinians didn't compromise?

If the Palestinians got what was fair, they would split the entire country 50/50 with equal access to the sea, and air, and equal rights to govern themselves and allow the right of return for Palestinians.

Due to the first Arab-Israeli war, a significant number of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes inside what is now Israel. These refugees, numbering over four million today (but 700,000 at the time), comprise about half the Palestinian people. Since that time, the Palestinians have called for full implementation of the right of return, meaning that each refugee would be granted the option of returning to his or her home, with property restored, or accept compensation instead.

Israelis asserted that allowing a right of return to Israel proper, rather than to the newly created Palestinian state, would mean an influx of Palestinians that would fundamentally alter the demographics of Israel, jeopardizing Israel's Jewish character and its existence as a whole. The Israelis also argued that a larger number of Jewish refugees had been pushed out of Arab countries since 1948, and were not compensated, and that most of them ended up in Israel.

Four million Palestinians arrving in Israel (pop 7million) form a majority and would be able to vote for (for example) a Hamas government. There's no way any Israeli government, no matter how doveish, will ever accept it.

Four million Palestinians arriving in Israel (pop 7million) form a majority

You must work for Clinton campaign. But in any case, not all refugees will choose to return, and I am sure limiting the number of returnees to, say, 200K per year in order to facilitate their assimilation in the society can be negotiated. Returned refugees will in fact become Israeli citizens and be able to vote. However, in the meantime they will be subject to Israeli laws and end up with long prison sentences if they show any violent tendencies which are unavoidable for Hamas supporters. By the time, ret

1) Abandon further settlement development. Right now, Abbas won't even negotiate with them because they are taking more land from Palestinains for settlements.2) Begin negotiating with Haniya. Like it or not, he is the fairly elected representative of the Palestinian Authority. The problem is that, as you point out, Hamas sees its goal as the destruction of Israel, but Haniya has shown that he is more moderate than that, and negotiation is the only way to change the propaganda. Note that good thing can g

THIS COULD WORK "For any Israeli killed by a rocket fired from Gaza they should annex 1 hectare (or some other suitable amount) of Gaza into Israel proper." and "For any Palestinian killed by a rocket fired from Israel they should annex 1 hectare (or some other suitable amount) of Israel into Gaza proper." In the past week Palestinians have scored 120 hectares, and the Israeli's 5. I am guessing if this law was implemented 10 years ago Israel would be a small small fraction of what it is right now. I guess your idea might make them think a little. They probably wouldn't go for it though! sorry!:(

For any Israeli killed by a rocket fired from Gaza they should annex 1 hectare (or some other suitable amount) of Gaza into Israel proper. Move the fences and all. Keep repeating it until the Palestinians figure it out and stop. Or until they drown, or until they end up in Egypt, depending on which fence you move.

Or maybe the solution is for Palestinians to kill Israeli civilians for every hectare taken until the Israelis figure it out and stop?...or maybe both solutions are totally idiotic and the conflict isn't going to be solved until both parties realise it?

They gave them back a shitload of land in hopes of coming to some reasonable compromise.

Yet, they are still establishing colonies and have yet to comply with UN resolutions.

The Palestinians decided that launching rockets from their new land at the Israelis was a fine thing.

Obviously now the best idea I can think of. Even when only thinking in terms of Palestinians' good.

We (the U.S. and Europe) have poured billions of dollars into the hands of the Palestinians.

I would suggest you first compare the amount of money the US sent to the Palestinians to the amount of money it sent Israel (hint, at least an order of magnitude difference). An even more interesting thing to look at is the amount the US gives Israel (billions *per year*) vs Israel's military budget. Basically, the US is pretty much paying for all the military gear Israel uses to kill Palestinians.

I've always thought that if the US had been on the Palestinians' side, we'd see Palestinians bombing Israel with F-16s and Israelis blowing themselves up in Palestine while throwing home-made rockets. Hell, put any two nations in the same economic/political context and you'll see pretty much the same outcome.

Fuck the Palestinians. They don't want peace. They only wish to kill more Jews, no matter what the cost.

This is exactly why this conflict isn't going to be solved any time soon. You've got a majority of people on each side who *do* want peace, while at the same time there's a vocal minority that doesn't want peace and blames it on the other side.

Oh right. So having been rounded up into little groups by the Israelis and continually provoked, the Palestinians should just give up and let themselves be exterminated?

Let me ask you something - if there were Israeli tanks rolling down your street right now, and Israeli soldiers shooting American civilians, what would you do? Fight back, or sit on your arse and wait for the bullet?

Instead, we should stick to the track of "Palestinians/Muslims are evil", right?

No, we should stick to the topic at hand. I never once said anything about Palestinians/Muslims being evil, you just made the assumption that I must hate them, because I don't hate Jews. Is the world that black and white to you? You either hate Jews and love Palestinians or vice versa?

So New York citizens should also sue over the WTC attacks?

Sure, why not? Sue the Saudi government, if you can prove a link. Sue the US go

Sure, why not? Sue the Saudi government, if you can prove a link. Sue the US government for not detecting it. Whatever - if someone has negligence, then so be it. If no one has negligence, then you don't sue.

They did. I knew personally someone who was party to the suit. I am not sure what the current status of the suit is as I haven't spoken to the person in a few years. I do remember a nifty little detail about the suit though -- the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was represented by James Baker, III.

You mean the holocaust is due to the Jews not attacking other nations? Do you have a source for that or something?
The Holocaust is what happens when a people try to use non-violence, cooperation, and appeasement, in order to deal with an enemy whose stated goal is their destruction.

Before you start blabbing about Ghandi and the power of non-violent resistance, let's get something clear: there is a MASSIVE difference between fighting a foe who actually cares about being humane, and fighting a foe who'l

Just because someone disagrees with the Israelis doesn't mean they agree with the Palestinians.Both sides are 100% in the wrong. If someone came and took my land, I'd probably fight. If they had the military backing of the most armed nation on Earth, and this lasted years with no REAL attempts at reasonable compromise, I'd probably get desperate. If the invaders put me into ghettos, and restricted my livelihood, some people might get desperate enough to blow themselves up. Add two (or three with the Ame

I'll have a piece of that. This sounds like typically short-sighted thinking.

In fact, I'll go one further - how about this?

When they have the laser, and the toxic chemicals, and people living near the laser start getting ill and having weirdly deformed babies (or whatever hideous consequence this will bring), they'll sue the Israeli government for making them ill by siting that bloody stupid laser near their homes.

I should imagine that the fact that a larger town like Ashkelon has also been hit by rockets might result in this Laser project being revived. It should be noted that up until 1948 Ashkelon used to be called al-Majdal and was home to some 10,000 Arabs. Their homes were taken and they were ethnically cleansed and moved to Gaza. A few years later the name al-Majdal was also erased and it was renamed Ashkelon. Don't expect the news reports to tell you any of this stuff though.

To pre-empt the comments that will follow, it's not relevant to point out Israeli action in Gaza and get into a debate over whether it's justified or not - this topic is about residents of Sderot taking completely non-violent, legal action, over repeated aggressive and violent attacks from a neighbouring region.

Plenty of Palestinians think that non-violent methods such as protests are the best way forward as well. The problem is they often get beaten up or shot either with real or plastic bullets. In the recent crisis the IDF shot dead an unarmed 13 year old boy at a protest. A while back I watched a video of the IDF spokeswoman trying to explain why they had fired tank shells at unarmed protesters. She said they were just firing near to them to "warn them". Tanks shells for crowd control?

It's good that the people of Sderot can use legal action. If they were Palestinians they would have far less options and that anger would find other more bloody ways of expressing itself. Indeed, if you go back to the 40s in Israel, you will find exactly that situation.

It should be noted that up until 1948 Ashkelon used to be called al-Majdal and was home to some 10,000 Arabs. Their homes were taken and they were ethnically cleansed and moved to Gaza.

They evacuated the country and collaborated with Egypt to exterminate their former neighbors. The Arabs who stayed in Israel rather than doing that became citizens and continue to hold full civil rights, as do their descendants.

True, the few wealthy Palestinians fled (the landowners), hoping Arab armies would be able to defeat the approaching Israeli army, but most Palestinians lived in slums and only fled when the Israeli forces approached their cities or drove them out. Both sides engaged in atrocities (and even more propaganda). Of course, this had been going on for centuries but most people just talk about the bad stuff the OTHER side did.

The Palestinian collaboration with Egypt in 1948 wasn't what pissed the Israelis off - it was the wider Arab collaboration with the Nazis during WWII. When WWII concluded and the Israelis were able to secure arms from Soviet sources (not to mention a huge influx of pissed off European Jews), it was payback time. The Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem was instrumental in banning the immigration of German Jews to the Palestinian Mandate during WWII, and so was directly responsible for the murder of thousands of German Jews during the Holocaust.

Before the Arab states invaded Israel in 1948, they announced to the Arabs living in Israel that if they left Israel and helped the Arab states invade Israel, they would get the Jews' land once the Jews were forced into the sea. Instead, the Jews won. Since then, a bunch of Arabs are being held in refugee camps for generation after generation, while still others settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which themselves were part of Jordan and Egypt, respectively, until those territories were used as staging

You're right, there is a difference between the rights of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews: Arabs have the additional right to not serve in the military. Israel's universal conscription does not apply to its Arab citizens.

The Palestinians, historically, are the Arabs who left Israel in order to help its neighbors invade it and exterminate its inhabitants. Their Arab allies (mostly Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) betrayed the Palestinians and refused to grant them citizenship, even if they inhabit territories that

...if the government is refusing to take any preventative action, while over 7,000 rockets have fallen on the town, then suing the government seems a very reasonable action

Ok, so let me start by saying that I think suicide bombings and random rocket attacks on civilians are wrong, immoral, and inexcusable.

Now that I've gotten the obligatory "I'm not a terrorist apologist" crap out of the way, let me say this:

They should be suing to force their dumbshit government to start a serious peace process with the Palestinians and develop a working 2-state solution which provides security and prosperity for both peoples. The Israel's government's actions against the Palestinians - the harsh, collective punishment and indiscriminate killings - need to stop, and the Hamas government needs to be taken seriously and negotiated with.

And before anybody comments that Hamas has pledged to destroy Israel and how you negotiate with someone that believes that, I say, big fucking deal. The Soviets pledged to bury the US, and spent the better part of 50 years pointing enough nuclear weaponry at the other half of the earth to wipe out humanity several times over. Still, there were talks, and attempts to reduce the hostility and bring peace about. You can and must deal with your enemies.

Terrorism is a bad thing. But terrorism is just a tactic, and one that's used when the warfare situation is asymmetrical. The Israelis have a very modern, well equipped and well trained army, and they make extensive use of it in what they see as a battle to ensure their survival. The Palestinians have no military to speak of, and so it makes sense to them to resort to terrorist attacks in what they see as a battle to gain the right to self determination and freedom the control of Israel.

Just a little history.In 1948 there were two states. Israel and Palistine. After the 1948 war Egypt grabed the Gaza strip and Jorden grabed and then annexed the West Bank. Later Egypt tried to make the Gaza strip and atonomas region but the Palastinian Arabs in the west bank torpedoed the attempt. Then a few years later the King of Jodan started negotiations with Israel and the Palastinian Arabs in the West Bank to create a Palistinian Arabe state there. In return for his efforts Arafat's organization

They should be suing to force their dumbshit government to start a serious peace process with the Palestinians and develop a working 2-state solution which provides security and prosperity for both peoples. The Israel's government's actions against the Palestinians - the harsh, collective punishment and indiscriminate killings - need to stop, and the Hamas government needs to be taken seriously and negotiated with.

It's easy to say this but hard you haven't pointed out a real solution. How exactly do you want them to negotiate?
Should they concede to all the Hamas demands? Clearly that won't work since, as you've pointed out, Hamas won't stop demanding until Israel is gone. It takes TWO sides to negotiate, and both have to be wanting peace. Until Hamas is willing to compromise, what can Israel do?
As I see it, there are a few strategies:

They can just sit and take all the punishment Hamas gives them, and refuse

> Israel and West should have given Hamas more rope -> give it a chance to run Palestinian territoriesThey more or less did, right up to the point where Hamas staged a military coup in Gaza and started firing rockets over the border. Note that Abbas didn't dissolve the government until after said military coup.

A sovereign government firing rockets over a border at the territory of another sovereign government. It's usually called an act of war...

Even while we were providing aid to the Fatah-led government under Arafat, they were still blowing up busses in Israel (a blatant crime against humanity at least as bad as these rocket attacks). It boils down to the fact that we are more afraid of Hamas.

Hamas had an oportunity to lay a real foundation for peace and we took that away. Hamas was elected on a promise to get rid of corruption. Had they been able to deliver on that, perhaps there would be a real negotiating partner. Instead our government has

The GP congratulates a certain set of people for finding a solution which is better than suicide bombing. You think "He is talking about Arabs.". Perhaps it is you who have the stereotyping problem, not the GP. You are putting words in his mouth.

Depends what you mean. They have more Jews in the news than Sikhs, but more "Sikh"-topic stories than "Jew"-topic stories. This is because Jews are more normalised in Canadian society than Sikhs and Canadian media is obsessed with reporting on the "broad strata" of Canadian "communities", not that people actually care what the nature of God is now that new immigrants have come in with The Truth(c) (did you know God doesn't want you to wear a motorcycle helmet anymore? Go figure). How many "Protestant" new

The problem is that a lot of Gaza-residents are employed in Israel. You would shift emphasis from rockets to bus bombs. Not sure that is a good idea.Hamas is trying to provoke Israel into dispurportionate measures and they are succeeding. Kill 120 Palestinians (mostly civilians) for every 5 Israelis killed? Heck even the Bush Administration is calling for Israel to back off, which is telling.

There is a clear goal to these attacks-- get Israel to respond too heavily. Countries and private individuals in

So, your neighbor blows up your garage and builds a condo on the land. You complain. He shoots your children in retaliation. You throw rocks at him. He kills your wife in retaliation. You fire a gun at his house. He flies a jet over your house and fires missiles into it. You invite members of the press to witness what's going on. He shoots them, not realizing he's being videotaped. He denies he did anything wrong. He calls you the vicious neighbor.

Heh, yeah, and who exactly is going to make them leave? They are a viable country if for no other reason that no one can get rid of them. Maybe it was a mistake to create Israel, but that was a long time ago: get over it. (It was just as long ago that Cuba unfairly confiscated US property, and it is just as stupid that the US STILL has a trade embargo against Cuba). As for who the land 'rightly' belongs to, that is an argument going back thousands of years, and is frankly irrelevant with Israel and their big weapons sitting right there; they are not going anywhere. If you want to be respected in a conversation about foreign affairs, you're going to have to deal with that fact.

A few points:

There are Arabs living happily in Israel. The Druze are happy Israeli citizens, and the Bedouin are generally friendly with Israelis.

Even the Arabs living in Israel who AREN'T happy with Israel would rather live in Israel than in Palastine (West Bank/Gaza).

The Palastinian refugees living in Arab countries (like Lebanon) are treated much worse by the Arabs than those in Palastine are by the Jews.

It's true perhaps that Israel goes a little overboard in their responses to people attacking them, however, they do have at least one neighbor who has sworn explicitly to destroy them, so it is kind of understandable.

I hate to participate in an off-topic discussion, but Israel's treatment of its Arab population (a highly debatable topic with a profound history btw) would be contrary to its own purpose if it is as you say. The whole idea was to establish a "Jewish" nation, so by definition the creation of the state was a very racist mistake indeed. The Arabs living "happily" in Israel are no measure in number to the others whose land is being stolen daily to new settlements being built on it, and who are being mercilessly massacred with their families if they attempt to fight back, where the settlement building is a daily series of facts being created and not something that happened a "long time ago". There are people losing, as we speak, the land that belonged to them for centuries because they do not happen to belong to a particular race. Lasers will not change how utterly disgusting that is, or the those people's efforts to fight back in whatever desperate way they can.

For the record: I do not condone attacks on civilians by either side, and am as disgusted at the Arab militants as I am at the Israelis. It's just that you're making it sound like Arabs are welcome to live in Israel, whereas this is obviously not true "by definition". Indeed, that's what the whole right-of-return issue with the Palestinian Arabs is all about.

In which Arab country are Palestinians surrounded by checkpoints they may or may not be allowed to cross on any given day, so they're never sure whether they can get to work, school or their own fields? You clearly don't have the faintest clue what you're talking about. Take it from someone who's been to Israel, the occupied territories and all countries around them.

Take for my example, Lebanon. The Palestinians are locked up in their refugee camps, and not even allowed to import building materials. The Lebanese don't really want them there, and it makes for some bad conditions.

The town in question is Sderot, where most inhabitants are of North African (especially Moroccan) origins. Those tend to be not so hell-bent on Zionism as European Jews because they weren't persecuted as much. I like to think that the government of a country founded on Zionism and so proud of it, would be slightly biased towards the inhabitants of Sderot.

Also, has anyone of you ever seen the damage katyushas make? Calling those things rockets or spending money to intercept them is ludicrous.

I really think Ashkelon (or al-Majdal before the 10,000 Arabs were ethnically cleansed in 1948) is a bigger issue. The population is a lot bigger (108,300 vs 19,800).

Also, has anyone of you ever seen the damage katyushas make? Calling those things rockets or spending money to intercept them is ludicrous.

They are pretty pathetic in terms of damage. However, their military value is in their psychological impact, and to a certain extent, economic impact (with everyone running to shelters several times a day). Hamas' thinking is that they will be able to use the rockets in response to future IDF attacks as a form of deterrent. It's a danger

Toxic chemicals? Don't they know that it's possible to synthesize excited bromide in an argon matrix. Yes, its an excimer, frozen in its excited state.

It's a chemical laser but in solid, not gaseous, form. Put simply, in deference to you, Slashdot, it's like lasing a stick of dynamite. As soon as we apply a field we couple to a state, it is radiatively coupled to the ground state.

I figure we can extract at least 10 to the 21st photons per cubic centimeter which will give one kilojoule per cubic centimeter at 600 nanometers, or, one megajoule per liter.

So how well did it actually do against the obsolete bargain basement Iranian missiles used in the recent war in Lebanon? I remember a fanfare before the war, lots of wild claims, hand waving and "don't you worry about that" as a response to any question. Then there was absolute silence when there was a perfect chance for live tests.

Does it actually work or does it only operate in the sort of tests that Mr Geller did to get his government funding?

It's never been deployed, primarily for the logistical reasons mentioned. However, it's been extremely effective in tests, shooting down simultaneous salvos of artillery and even mortar shells fired in exercises. Katyusha rockets are even easier to hit.

The issue is range: THEL is effective only out to a few kilometers, and ideally a target would be destroyed over the launch territory. To protect a town of any decent size, several of these would have to be deployed, possibly within heavy rifle range of Palestinian buildings, and production costs could be several million dollars each. I'd still be interested to see the effects, particularly if Israel basically could deploy enough to cover the border with the Gaza Strip and then simply stop targeting the launch sites, which would reduce the number of incursions into Palestinian territory, and start moving the PR tide back the other way.

For about a year on the mobile version that was supposed to go on a series of containers on trucks. The cost was going into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and so the army cut the program. One reason was that insurgents in iraq weren't using mortars very often anymore, so there wasn't much use for such a system.

A few months later, hezbollah in Lebanon started firing katyushas again, oh well.

It was the most awesome project I've worked on so far. I actually got to see it take out mortars in flight on monitors while sitting in command and control 5 km away. (The system in new mexico doesn't have very good output scrubbers, so to avoid NF3 poisoning, humans have to be 5km away while it is firing.)

There's also more problems with it than just chemicals. For instance, the glass window in the front that the beam exits from costs 1 million dollars and takes a year to make (got to withstand a vacuum and a very powerful laser).

And the biggest problem is, they overwhelm it by sending lots of rockets, and then send several directly at the device itself. One rocket gets through, and there goes years of work and millions of dollars.

Anyway, thought the slashdot crowd might find some of that interesting.

I won't say anything about its specifics, but I can tell you that it DOES work. It IS loud and you WILL crap your pants every time it goes off without warning, but that's a small price to pay for a WORKING product that shoots mortars and rockets out of the sky. This would be the perfect solution to their problem and frankly I'm surprised that I haven't heard more about it. Ah, I just answered my own question from my wiki link- it looks like they are in fact looking into these. Good for them.

These things WERE designed to handle multiple targets. The system combines radar tracking of incoming projectiles as well as outgoing bullets and can determine if a target it neutralized or not. It can engage many targets at once by firing, locking on to another target, firing, and then rescanning the first target to determine if it was 'killed'. This all happens faster than the gun can move, and targets are prioritized before the servos even start spinning.I suppose you also believe that an F-16 can empty

I wonder if a lower tech weapon system wouldn't do. Something like a grid of Phalanx point defense systems. They can shoot down mortar rounds so the low tech stuff the Palestinian are firing should be even easier to hit:

They're not going to just cry and go running home after a FREAKING laser attack. Oh no. You can bet that handfuls of Qassam missiles will rain down on a pretty regular basis. What Israel needs is a good read of Dr. Suse's Butter Battle Book and have a sudden outbreak of common sense. Palestine needs to grow the hell up and stop acting like an angry child too.

Probably not, seeing as how the laser has been proposed as a strictly defensive weapon, to shoot down the rockets/missiles that are ALREADY raining down on a 'pretty regular basis'. Matter of fact, the citizens of the town could suddenly decide to start lobbing explosives back the other way and the attacks wouldn't increase significantly, as Palestine is already throwing as much as they can at them.

The Israelis are indeed shooting back at the Palestinians- see this article, [iht.com] for example, which mentions 120 Palestinians killed recently including many civilians (although the definition of 'civilian' is so lose in that area it's spin either way).

Rather, the Israelis are seeking an option that 'doesn't require them to shoot back' much like the United States was seeking an option that 'didn't require them to shoot back' in Star Wars and BMD.

Intent matters.The Palestinians try and kill as many babies, women, children and non-combatant civilians as possible. When it happens, they celebrate, just as they did on 9/11 and just as they did last week.

The Israelis do not try and kill non-combatants, however their job is made harder because the rockets are fired from the middle of townships, as Hamas knows dead Palestinian kids make for good propaganda. Certainly no Israeli celebrates when it happens. That's the difference and it's important.

"The Palestinians try and kill as many babies, women, children and non-combatant civilians as possible. When it happens, they celebrate, just as they did on 9/11 and just as they did last week."
I'll just pretend you sound completely rational and not like a bigoted racist who is trying to dehumanize another severely oppressed group... say what? they're intentionally killing "babies"... wont' somebody save the children?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_al-Hams [wikipedia.org]
Iman Darweesh Al Hams was a 13-year-old Palestinian schoolgirl killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops in a "no man's" zone near the Philadelphi Route on 5 October 2004 in Rafah in the Gaza Strip.
Hit by more than a dozen bullets, her death was one of series of incidents cited by human rights groups as illustrative of a "culture of impunity" among the Israel Defense Forces.[2] It is also one of the few instances, among the hundreds of cases in which Palestinian children and teenagers have been killed by army fire, in which the army actually launched an investigation.[3] Ultimately however, no one was held responsible for her death.
There was no explanation from the officer or the court as to how al-Hams came to have 17 bullet wounds to her arms, legs, torso and face.

Okay, I'll bite. You've provided one example. Let's say the story is entirely as you tell it. Can you now refer me to the video of Israelis dancing in the streets, handing out sweets? Or perhaps the Israeli streets named after the shooter?

No, I didn't think so.

If Palestinian children are being hit by gunfire, perhaps Palestinian gunmen shouldn't be firing from near children.

It happens all the time in Israel and abroad. Islamists know dead children and crying mothers are good shields when alive and good propaganda when dead.

As a Jew I am outraged by this. The so-called Zionists don't like to hear this, but they are doing to the Palestinians exactly what the Nazis did to us. And there are a lot of Jews who agree with me -- don't let AIPAC fool you.Of course the Palestinians retaliate. What do you expect them to do when their children, their brothers, their sisters, their cousins, their uncles and aunts, their fathers and mothers are killed?

I really hate this topic. But I feel obligated to respond to it every time.

Nobody, for some reason, can admit that BOTH are wrong, and probably share equal blame in the matter. The Israelis invades already occupied land and expects them to hold the Israelis sovereign because some ancient book says so, of course the Palestinians fought back. In this Israel is wrong. The Palestinians purposely targetting civilians is ALSO wrong. The Israelis near genocidal clamp down on said Palestinians is ALSO wrong. And so it goes.

My problem with this is when someone has the balls to criticize Israel they get branded either pro-Palestinian, or worse, anti-Semitic. To entertain a probable straw-man, don't say that EVERYONE does this, you rarely hear of the Israeli terrorists, or the Palestinian freedom fighters, these terms are just as valid this way, as the way they are commonly used thanks to the brutal tactics on BOTH sides. And yes, both sides can be looked on with sypathetic rhetoric, the Israelis are fighting for their existence, and the Palestinians are fighting against tyranny. Fine... To me this is an indicator that siding with one faction is impossible, since both are semi-justified, and semi-evil.

Neither side wants compromise, so bloodshed they shall get, and probably deserve.

The only point of policy I can come down on is that the U.S. has no right to assist either side. Either way we are left morally tainted and bloodied. This is especially true today when our support of Israel is a major contributing factor to the hatred of the West. I'd support which ever side decided to deal with things in accord with international law, and humanistic values, and for the time being it looks like neither even want to come close to this.

The only fair (albeit now dated) version of this conflict I've seen way David K. Shipler's Arab And Jew [amazon.com]. Both sides are indoctrinating each other towards pure hatred and violence, there will never be a valid conversation on this until that stops.

There are a lot of people in the world who believe that unarmed Israeli civilians somehow deserve to be shelled.

And there are just as many idiots that believe that unarmed Palestinians deserve to be shelled. A Jewish soldier shoots and kills a few Muslims boys playing football so a Muslim soldier (we call them terrorists because we don't like Muslims) fires a rocket at a Jewish village so the Jewish army send in a helicopter to blow up a Muslim market and the Muslims go and blow up a Jewish market...

and the plebs take sides. Why can't people see that until we stop killing each other there will never be peace. The people in power, both Jewish and Muslim, do not want peace. They are not stupid. They make their money from the fighting. All the shouts of "He started it" just sound like 10 year old boys fighting in the playground. They are both killing each others children and the fighting will not stop until those in power give peace a chance.

All the shouts of "He started it" just sound like 10 year old boys fighting in the playground. They are both killing each others children and the fighting will not stop until those in power give peace a chance.

Do you take the same attitude to WWII?

When people's countries are occupied by others who believe they have some ancient right to lebensraum, you can't expect to be able to scold both sides and tell them to play nicely. This is life, not the playground.

- will pick targets apparently at random- targets with absolutely no military or strategic values are attacked with full force- friendly civilian casualties are part of the battle plan- always disguised as a civilian- central command structures, guidelines and rules are flexible, nonexistent or a joke

Apart from "always disguised as a civilian" you have described both sides of this dispute. The true definition of 'terrorism' is about the use of fear as a weapon. To instil terror as a weapon. Both the Jews

There are a number of games that you can play where the optimal result requires perfect cooperation between the different teams/players, but where individual greediness can lead to a significant individual gain. That individual gain of course comes at the expense of all other players.

There is a variant of this type of game that disallows communication between teams. It's been shown that with that setup, there is exactly one way to play:1st round: no information is available, so assume maximal cooperation from all other teams, and play your turn accordingly.2nd round: Reciprocate the other teams' play: if they played greedy, play greedy. If they played nice, play nice.3rd round: repeat approach from round 2 until the end.

The logic behind this is that greedy players will only play nice when they see the exact consequences of their actions imposed on themselves, and when they see that playing nice is rewarded.

Applied to the Israel/Palestine conflict, it could mean that the appropriate response to random rocket launches is an immediate retaliatory strike with equal destructive power, aimed at the source of the rockets. On the other hand, the appropriate response to suicide bombers is a little more fuzzy. Send in robot-bombers? Drop a bomb in a random place? Also, it is unclear what the positive feedback for no rocket launches or suicide bombers would be. Resume normal conditions? Stay put? Unlock frozen support funds for hamas?

I definitely think though that Palestinians in general have to understand that rockets being launched from their territory means that rockets will be launched against them in general as well. It'd be difficult to implement, as it's a completely different approach to dealing with rocket attacks and suicide bombers: personal responsibility and punishment is out, collective punishment is in. Not to mention that a lot of the current preventive measures would have to go out the window as well.

I doubt that anybody in Israel has the courage to experiment with that.